LAKE DUKAN: Farmers in Iraqi Kurdistan in the hunt for to irrigate plants face seeing their financial lifeline slip away because the waters of Lake Dukan recede and dams upstream in Iran stem the go with the flow. Bapir Kalkani, who could also be a business unionist, farms close to the picturesque lake however has noticed marked adjustments over the last 3 years as Iraq suffers extended drought.

“There used to be water the place I’m status now” in 2019, the 56-year-old stated. “It used to head 3 kilometers additional, however the stage has retreated.” Sesame and beans are being grown at the simple beneath a blazing solar, adjoining to the lake which is fed through a Tigris tributary, the Decrease Zab river which has its supply in Iran.

The massive synthetic lake used to be created within the Nineteen Fifties following building of the Dukan dam, to provide irrigation and consuming water for the area, in addition to to generate electrical energy. However for a number of years each the lake and the river had been shrinking – as have the entire rivers in Iraq. The rustic is assessed as some of the 5 international locations maximum at risk of the results of local weather exchange and desertification. Its water reserves have fallen through 60 % when compared with remaining 12 months, the federal government says.

Rainfall changing into uncommon

With rainfall changing into a rarity and after 3 successive years of drought, Iraq has been compelled to halve the world it devotes to agriculture. “If we hadn’t had a bit rain in past due spring, there would had been no plants in Kurdistan this 12 months,” Kalkani stated.

Farmers within the space used to dig shallow wells fed through the Dukan so they might irrigate their plants. However no longer any longer. “The wells have misplaced 70 % in their water,” he stated. Sesame farmer Shirko Aziz Ahmed needed to dig a smartly a number of metres deep so he may just get admission to water and lift it the usage of a diesel-powered pump. “Sesame wishes a large number of watering, so I’m going to need to dig even deeper because the water stage is going down,” he stated.

Drought isn’t the one supply of the farmer’s water issues. Iran has constructed a number of dams at the Decrease Zab, significantly the Kolsa barrage. “The Kolsa dam has led to no less than an 80 % drop within the water ranges” of the Decrease Zab, stated Banafsheh Keynoush of the Washington-based Center East Institute. She stated Iran goes thru some of the worst droughts in its historical past and has needed to revise its irrigation coverage.

Iran ‘dam-building spree’

“Iran is on a dam-building spree, and plenty of of its dams are small,” she instructed AFP. The Dukan dam in Iraq has additionally been badly suffering from the decreased river go with the flow, stated its director Kochar Jamal Tawfeeq. “Now we’ve simplest 41 %, beneath part of the capability” of the dam, he stated.

It provides consuming water for “about 3 million other people in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk”, two primary towns downstream, he stated. However at simply 300 mm of rainfall remaining 12 months – part the former annual reasonable – the skies have no longer been beneficiant. And Tawfeeq stated 2022 is on the right track to reflect remaining 12 months’s figures. “We’re freeing 90 cubic meters consistent with 2nd,” the director stated. “When the reservoir is complete, we liberate 200 to 250.” Tawfeeq stated farmers have been being instructed “to not develop plants that want an excessive amount of water”.

He stated Baghdad had despatched groups to Iran to talk about the decreased go with the flow of the Decrease Zab river, however “there’s no cooperation from the Iranians”. Iran contends its river go with the flow contribution into the Tigris and Euphrates basin is simplest about six %, consistent with Keynoush. “What Iran is making an attempt to mention is: ‘The Euphrates and Tigris issues you’ve gotten are in point of fact between you and Turkey’,” the place the 2 primary rivers have their resources, she added.

However Iraq itself isn’t above complaint, stated Azzam Alwash, founding father of the Nature Iraq non-government group and presidential adviser. Iraqi Kurdistan within the north plans to build new dams however the tasks lack any coordination with Baghdad, Alwash stated. Downstream, in central and south Iraq, the placement is being exasperated through a loss of modernization of water sources and may just lead to crisis, he warned. – AFP